August 3

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Constitutional Gazette (August 3, 1776).

“Four weeks, for FIVE Shillings, and One Shilling, for each week afterwards.”

When the Constitutional Gazette completed its first year of publication, John Anderson, the printer, updated the masthead to include both a volume number and an issue number.  The masthead previously featured only an issue number.  The July 31, 1776, edition was the first with both: “VOL. II” AND “NUMB. 105.”  That was not the only way that Anderson marked the conclusion of one year and the beginning of another.  The advertisements in the August 3 edition started with a notice from the printer.

Anderson declared that he “takes this method, of returning his unfeigned thanks, to those Gentlemen, who, favoured him, with their custom, for the NEW-YORK CONSTITUTIONAL GAZETTE, of last year, and hopes for a continuance of their favours.”  In addition to expressing appreciation to his subscribers, Anderson encouraged them to renew their subscriptions.  To that end, he pledged that “he shall, still continue, to make it, his constant study and endeavour, that the CONSTITUTIONAL GAZETTE, shall be, a vehicle, of foreign, as well as domestic intelligence.”  In other words, he promised to publish all the news that was fit to print!

He also used the occasion to solicit advertisements.  “Those Gentlemen, who chuse to advertise in the CONSTITUTIONAL GAZETTE,” Anderson declared, “shall, (in a conspicuous manner) be inserted, (if short) four weeks, for FIVE Shillings, and One Shilling, for each week afterwards.”  Most printers did not regularly disclose the fees they charged for advertisement, though they sometimes mentioned “the usual rates” with an expectation that prospective advertisers were already familiar with them.  A few printers included the price of advertising in the masthead or the colophon, but most did not.  That made Anderson’s disclosure of what he charged to run advertisements a relatively rare occurrence.

Subscriptions and advertisements accounted for only two of the revenue streams that Anderson cultivated.  He concluded his notice with a reminder that “Printing, of all sorts,” including handbills, broadsides, trade cards, and other advertising ephemera, “is done, in the neatest manner, with care and expedition, and on the shortest notice” at his printing office.  Anderson commemorated a full year of publishing the Constitutional Gazette by simultaneously thanking his customers and encouraging all readers to place the orders for subscriptions, advertisements, and job printing necessary to keep his press busy and the newspaper in print.  He did not call on subscribers to make overdue payments, as printers often did in their notices, but instead focused on the services he provided.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 3, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Constitutional Gazette (August 3, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Ledger (August 3, 1776).

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Providence Gazette (August 3, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (August 3, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (August 3, 1776).

August 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-England Chronicle (August 2, 1776).

“The Sale of the CARGO of the Prize Ship Lady JULIANA, from Jamaica.”

On August 2, 1776, Joseph Russell, an auctioneer, placed advertisements about an upcoming sale in both newspapers published in Boston, the Continental Journal and the New-England Chronicle.  He advised readers that “the Sale of the CARGO of the Prize Ship Lady JULIANA, from Jamaica,” would begin in the morning on the following Wednesday.  That cargo included “choice Sugars,” rum, ginger, “568 Jamaica Hides, very large,” “63 Planks of Mohogony,” cocoa, tortoise shell, “old Copper, Brass and Pewter,” and “17 Elephants Teeth.”  Russell noted that the ship was “now laying at the Honourable JOHN HANCOCK, Esqr’s Wharf,” but did not indicate whether prospective bidders were welcome to examine the cargo before it went up for bids.

He did, however, provide a list of “CONDITIONS of SALE.”  That was unusual in an advertisement for an auction, but Russell may have considered it necessary since this auction concerned the cargo of a prize ship rather than a private auction.  Some of the proceeds would be divided among the privateers who captured the ship with the remainder going to the government.  In other instances, bidders sought the best possible bargains, but the “CONDITIONS” for this auction required that “every Bidder shall advance 5-per Cent. on every Bid.”  That made bids increase more substantially than smaller increments that bidders might have otherwise preferred.  Russell also informed prospective bidders that “every Purchaser shall pay down as Earnest Money, 10-per Cent. and the Remainder in three Days after the Purchase.”  The auctioneer had no intention of extending credit for long periods.  The winning bidders had to put down a deposit immediately and submit the rest of the payment within three days.  Failure to do so meant not only losing the goods but also “Forfeiture of the advance Money.”  Such “CONDITIONS” warned prospective bidders not to conduct themselves according to the resources available to them on the day of the auction.  The final condition concerned disputes “between two or more Bidders.”  In such cases, “the Article in Dispute shall be put up again.”  The auctioneer expected good behavior and an orderly process.  Those who did not abide risked losing out on the cargo they hoped to acquire at the auction.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 2, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Connecticut Gazette (August 2, 1776).

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Connecticut Gazette (August 2, 1776).

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Continental Journal (August 2, 1776).

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Essex Journal (August 2, 1776).

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New-England Chronicle (August 2, 1776).

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New-England Chronicle (August 2, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (August 2, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (August 2, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (August 2, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (August 2, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (August 2, 1776).

August 1

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Evening Post (August 1, 1776).

“The managers hope for public assistance in detecting the villain.”

Reports of burglaries and robberies frequently appeared among the advertisements in early American newspapers, but this notice with a headline that proclaimed, “ROBBERY,” was different than most.  Rather than a house or shop that had been targeted, this time “the Cellar of the Public Manufactory at the corner of Market and Ninth streets” in Philadelphia “was broke open” sometime during the night of July 29, 1776.  The culprits absconded with “two pieces of goods cut out of the looms,” approximately “twenty yards of Cotton, Barragon, or Fustian” and approximately “fifty yards of narrow striped Corded Dimity.”  That was quite a haul, but the managers of the Public Manufactory noted that the fabrics were “rough and unfinished,” making them easy to recognize “if offered for sale, or carried to any of the bleachyards” for processing.

The managers requested “public assistance in detecting the villain” who perpetrated this crime.  They hoped that merchants, shopkeepers, millers, consumers, or anyone else who might spot these stolen textiles would aid them in “detecting the Robber, so that he may be prosecuted to conviction.”  In return, they would receive “FIFTY DOLLARS Reward.”  The size of the reward testified not only to the value of the fabrics but also to patriotic mission of the Public Manufactory.  It had been established to produce textiles that local consumers could purchase instead of imported goods.  The managers believed that the Public Manufactory played a vital role in making “domestic manufactures” that supported the local economy and reduced reliance on imports.  This enterprise played a symbolic as well as practical role in the contest with Great Britain.  The managers lamented that “losses of this kind (by discouraging weavers and manufacturers) may prove a fatal injury to America.”  Less than a month after the Continental Congress declared independence, the managers of the Public Manufactory envisioned high stakes for this “ROBBERY.”  The “villain” did not merely deprive them of several years of unfinished fabric; instead, he demoralized weavers who contributed to the American cause and might have even out the fate of the entire nation in jeopardy.  The managers of the Public Manufactory framed this unfortunate event and the potential reverberations as more than just everyday theft.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 1, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Maryland Gazette (August 1, 1776).

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Maryland Gazette (August 1, 1776).

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Maryland Gazette (August 1, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Evening Post (August 1, 1776).

July 31

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Constitutional Gazette (July 31, 1776).

“AMERICAN MADE DRUMS.”

“Buy American” and “Made in America” are familiar marketing appeals in modern America.  They are also appeals with a lineage that goes back to the eighteenth century, emerging in advertisements in American newspapers even before the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence.  Colonizers participated in a transatlantic consumer revolution that gained significant momentum by the middle of the century.  As part of the process, they followed the lead of their counterparts in Great Britain, both by purchasing an expanding array of clothing and housewares and by thinking about the role of the colonies in an empire defined by commerce rather than by conquest.  On both sides of the Atlantic, people thought of Great Britain as the producer of goods and the colonies as the consumer of goods.  That led to a trade imbalance that some colonizers sought to address by producing more good for their own consumption, rather than exporting raw materials, even before the imperial crisis.

Once Parliament attempted to regulate trade and impose duties on imported goods after the Seven Years War, some colonizers became more insistent that they should increase their “domestic manufactures” or goods produced in the colonies for local consumption.  A series of nonimportation agreements adopted for the purpose of gaining political leverage via commerce (or the lack of commerce) in the 1760s and 1770s made “Buy American” and “Made in America” appeals even more common as producers and consumers both imagined alternatives to goods imported from Great Britain.  Once the Revolutionary War began, such appeals had even greater significance.  Advertisers sometimes included short editorials in their newspaper notices to convince consumers to purchase their “domestic manufactures,” but not everyone considered that an essential part of their marketing efforts.  For instance, a brief advertisement in July 31, 1776, edition of the Constitutional Gazette – just three lines – proclaimed, “AMERICAN MADE DRUMS, Sold by PHILIP PELTON, At the Foot of Cowfoot-hill, in NEW-YORK.”  Pelton did not consider it necessary to elaborate on the drums he sold.  He apparently considered “AMERICAN MADE” a sufficient pitch to attract customers looking to outfit companies of soldiers fighting the war for independence.

Slavery Advertisements Published July 31, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Constitutional Gazette (July 31, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (July 31, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (July 31, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (July 31, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (July 31, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (July 31, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (July 31, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (July 31, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (July 31, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (July 31, 1776).

July 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (July 30, 1776).

“The Paper Mills are idle for want of Rags.”

Calls for linen rags appeared regularly in colonial American newspapers, though some readers may have had the impression that the frequency increased after the battles at Lexington and Concord.  Printers and their associates needed rags for American paper mills to recycle into paper.  They needed them more than ever due to disruptions in the supply of paper from England that resulted from nonimportation agreements and the Revolutionary War.

John Dunlap made a plea for “LINEN RAGS” in the July 30, 1776, edition of Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette.  Some advertisements consisted of only a couple of lines, but Dunlap made a longer appeal.  “THE highest price is given for clean Linen Rags, by JOHN DUNLAP, in Market Street, Baltimore,” the printer proclaimed.  He “begs leave to inform the Public in general, and the good people of this town in particular,” he continued, “that the Paper Mills are idle for want of Rags; and of consequence, the Presses … must soon be reduced to the same unhappy situation.”  In other words, anyone who got even some of their news from Dunlap’s newspaper had a duty to collect rags if they wanted that newspaper to continue circulating updates about the war and the actions taken by the Continental Congress as well as all sorts of other news.  Dunlap described printing presses as “the important vehicles of instruction and amusement,” underscoring the responsibility that he felt toward subscribers and “the Public in general.”  The printer hoped that this appeal, “this intimation of the languishing state of so interesting a manufacture” as rags into paper, “will be sufficient to prevail upon all careful Housekeepers to save their RAGS and send them for sale to JOHN DUNLAP.”  Women, those “careful Housekeepers” in Baltimore and the countryside, could make an essential contribution to keep the presses operating and news about the war circulating.

American Gazette (July 30, 1776).

On the same day, John Rogers made a similar request to readers in Salem, Massachusetts, for “clean Linnen RAGS” in the American Gazette.  “Little Masters and Mistresses, who are kind enough to bring RAGS,” he instructed, “are reminded, That the Days most convenient to take them in, are WEDNESDAYS, THURSDAYS and FRIDAYS.”  In addressing “Little Masters and Mistresses,” Rogers suggested that children played an important part in gathering rags, delivering them to the printing office, and receiving payment on behalf of their families.  In addition to women, boys and girls made significant contributions when it came to supplying an important resource for producing the paper necessary to keep newspapers, broadsides, pamphlets, and other items coming off of American presses during the American Revolution.

Slavery Advertisements Published July 30, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

American Gazette (June 30, 1776).

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American Gazette (June 30, 1776).

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American Gazette (June 30, 1776).

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Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (June 30, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Evening Post (June 30, 1776).